


The Wolf Interval

by Paper_Crane_Song



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cultural Differences, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Fix-it, Episode Tag, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, The Jingle Bells Affair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:11:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10514424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paper_Crane_Song/pseuds/Paper_Crane_Song
Summary: InThe Jingle Bells AffairIllya seems to go out of his way to hide his Russian identity. Napoleon thinks Illya isn't as okay with this as he appears to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _A wolf interval_ is a musical term concerned with tuning an instrument. It occurs when the interval between two notes in a scale strays further and further away from the pure, ideal interval and begins to sound false, dissonant and 'howling'.

_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_

_in secret, between the shadow and the soul._

_I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where._

_I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;_

_so I love you because I know no other way_

\- Fragment from sonnet Xvii by Pablo Neruda

* * *

 

They pulled up outside the hotel. Illya was the one who held the car door open for the Chairman and escorted him up the steps whilst Napoleon waited with the engine running, tugging the collar of his coat up even further against the icy wind.

“All sorted?” he said when Illya got back in the car. 

Illya grunted. “He'll sleep well tonight, the amount he's had.”

They drove back in silence. The city was still buzzing, last-minute shoppers scurrying about. When they stopped at an intersection he glanced at Illya. His partner was staring out the window, his face hidden.

They should have been celebrating; their assignment was a success and they were alive. But instead he felt uneasy. He gazed at Illya thoughtfully. 

_Why did you let the Chairman think you were from the West?_

_Did you rub the Chairman up the wrong way deliberately?_

_Did you want this mission to fail?_

And that there was the crux of the matter he realised, as he slid the car in gear again. Had Illya been too much of a communist at heart to endorse the Chairman's growing capitalist notions? It was a disturbing idea and one he knew that, as section chief, he'd have to raise with his friend.

He pulled up outside the apartment block. Illya's apartment was further away, and Illya held out his hand for the car keys.

“Come in for a drink.”

Illya sighed. “I'm tired, Napoleon.”

“Come on,” he said, elbowing his partner playfully, “it's a Thanksgiving tradition.”

“If it's a tradition, why didn't we do it last year?”

He shrugged. “Every tradition has to start somewhere.”

* * *

 

Later, when they were both relaxed and lounging on the couches, lulled by the warmth of the apartment and the dim lights that cast shadows over them both, Napoleon said, “Well you pulled it off. I don't think the Chairman suspected for one moment you were from the Motherland.”

Illya smiled into his drink. “No, he did not.”

“Is that why you do it?” The question was deceptively casual, even as he sat, one arm stretched over the back of the sofa.

“Do what?”

“The hair, the RP accent. Is it all just camouflage?”

Instead of answering, Illya tossed back the drink and pushed the glass towards him.

Napoleon poured him another. “I guess this means you're not driving home.”

 

“You know,” he said, several glasses later, “your name's a bit of a problem. If you did want to blend in.”

Illya made a non-committal noise. “It's been sufficiently Westernised by UNCLE and none of you say it right anyway.”

“What's in a name?” Napoleon said automatically, and Illya's lips quirked. “Quite.”

“Write it down for me,” he said then, reaching over for the notepad he kept by the telephone.

Illya sighed. “Napoleon - ”

“Humour me, all right? I need to brush up on my Cyrillic.”

“Why exactly?” Illya said, but he took the pen and paper from him anyway.

Napoleon refreshed their drinks as Illya wrote and then handed the paper back.

He held the paper at arm's length, considering it. “Илья - ” he began to spell out, and then Illya snatched the paper out of his hands.

“Ilya. Two syllables, the stress is on the first.” He proceeded to tear it up into small pieces, dropping them into the ashtray. “Why the sudden interest?”

He shrugged. “No interest. I was just thinking about our dear comrades Koz and Radish. Cultural differences. Their reactions to America.” He kept his tone light. “Were you ever like that?”

Instead of answering him, Illya fished out a book of matches from his jacket pocket and lit the paper on fire. He stared into the flames. “You know I was,” he said eventually.

“And now?

Illya looked at him then. “Stop playing games, Napoleon. What's this really about?”

“All right,” he snapped, sitting up. Illya blinked at the change. But Napoleon could go from laissez-faire to no-nonsense in seconds, and people tended to forget that. Even, it seemed at times, his own partner.

“I want to know if you were compromised on this assignment.”

Illya flinched, and Napoleon forced himself to continue. “You could have used your own background to reassure the Chairman, find common ground, but you didn't. If anything you seemed to go out of your way to make things difficult for him.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It's what Waverley might think,” he said, brushing the question aside, “and anyone else who reads the reports.”

“What they'll think is that I've integrated myself sufficiently into Western society.”

"But that's a lie, isn't it?" Was this the alcohol talking or was he using that as an excuse? Either way he was committed. "You're only pretending to integrate yourself because you don't have a choice.” 

Illya looked away, jutting out his lower lip, a tell that indicated he was severely displeased.

“Seriously,” he said, leaning forward now, “what would happen if you tried to go home? To live, I mean, after UNCLE? What would they do? Arrest you? Re-educate you? Shoot you?” He spoke these things out loud because he wanted Illya to contradict him, but instead Illya's stormy silence and the look on his face only confirmed it.

“Fine," he said, waving it away, "Intergration - I understand that. You didn't want to take any chances. But why didn't you at least tell them where you were from? You could have won the Chairman's trust – if you'd gotten him on our side then it would have made our job a hell of a lot easier.”

Illya smiled humourlessly. “Don't worry your pretty head over it, Napoleon. I know how to handle people like the Chairman.”

“Enlighten me then. As your partner.”

Illya turned his attention back to the ashtray. The fire had gone out now, and he shook the ashes. Embers flared amongst the soot. In a bored voice he said, “If they'd known I was Soviet they wouldn't have trusted me, or UNCLE for that matter. The Chairman would have felt threatened and deemed it necessary to defend his position. Mr. Waverley and I agreed that it was better to give him the space to reach his own conclusions -”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said, holding up his hand, “you talked to Waverley?”

Illya's witheringly look was confirmation enough.

“I wish I'd been included in your little tête-à-tête.”

“Why? It didn't concern you.”

He leant back, pinching the bridge of his nose. He suddenly felt very tired. “What are we even arguing about? It's Thanksgiving, for goodness sake.”

“You're angry because you think I didn't trust you enough to tell you the plan."

“No, I'll tell you what this is about,” he said, removing his hand from his eyes, and the words tumbled out, he couldn't stop them; “you're mad because you were playing a part to the Chairman and you hate yourself for it so you're taking it out on me.”

Illya stood up abruptly. At first Napoleon thought he was going to leave but instead he went over to the window.

He let out a sigh of frustration. He hated arguing with Illya. 

“Look, I'm sorry. Come and help me finish the bottle at least - "

“For your information,” Illya said, talking over him, “I can go home any time I like.” His tone was defensive, proud. “As for what I think to your country; if you really want to know, it disgusts me. What kind of a society encourages its citizens to purchase worthless junk whilst the poor ones die because they can't afford medical treatment?”

There were a number of accusations he could have levelled back at the Soviet Union but he swallowed the retorts down. For all Illya's haughty demeanour he was clearly upset.

"We're on the same side, you and I. There's a reason I joined UNCLE and not the CIA." But there was no reaction from his partner. 

“If you disliked living here so much,” he said, trying a different tack, “why didn't you transfer to the Asia branch, or the South American branch? It's not as if you don't speak the languages.”

 Illya still didn't respond. 

 He slumped, resting his head on the back of the couch, and stared up at the ceiling.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked into the silence.

A part of him longed to just crawl into bed and leave Illya to do whatever the hell he wanted. Were other agents' partners this hard work? He suspected not. His partnership with Illya was an oddity, frowned upon by some, a source of amusement for others. He always thought it was a kind of alchemy.

 He craned his neck round. Illya was holding himself so stiffly and clenching his jaw so hard that it hurt just to look at him, and Napoleon couldn't stand it any longer. He put the glass down carefully and slowly rose to his feet. He felt as if he were approaching a wild animal. They stood there together, looking down onto the cityscape below where lights and colours blurred together through the thick bulletproof glass.

“I know you didn't have a choice about joining UNCLE,” he said, suddenly wanting to say what his partner wasn't saying. That he couldn't say. “I didn't realise you were this unhappy; I thought working at the New York office - ”

Illya shook his head. “You're wrong, Napoleon,” and his voice was low and ugly, “I am not unhappy. That's the most shameful thing about it.”

“I don't understand.”

Illya's eyes flicked to his, then away again.

“You didn't choose to come here,” Napoleon said, trying again.

“But I did choose to enjoy it." He laughed then, a hollow bark, and Napoleon winced at the sound. "When Waverley ordered me to conceal my nationality from the Chairman, I felt relieved. I didn't want them to see what I had become."

"And what's that?"

"Neither fish nor fowl." Hesitation and then in a rush, "A traitor."

He risked a glance at him and was dismayed at what he saw. “Illya -” he reached for him but Illya recoiled. "Don't.”

He backed up a step and Illya turned away from him, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Napoleon was lost. He'd only seen his friend like this once, after Orbesk, and that time they'd drank their way out of the conversation. "Stop being so hard on yourself," he said forcefully, "your countrymen can hardly accuse you of having bourgeois tendencies, I've seen your apartment."

_Illya, please, look at me_

_"_ We're the best team to come out of the North American branch for a long time, there's no harm in taking satisfaction from that."

_Illya?_

Finally Illya responded. “That's not why I stay." The words hung heavy and aching in the space between them, and Napoleon tentatively reached out again, his hands on his friend's shoulders, turning him so that they were facing each other. 

“Then why do you stay?”

 Illya sighed and then lifted his head and Napoleon found that he'd known the answer all along.

 

  _Finis_


End file.
